Welcome to this weeks Chalk Donkey article for DFS PGA Golf. It’s the second week of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and we have the Dell Technologies Championship!
My name is Josh ThomasP, and I write the Chalk Donkey article for VIP’s every week here at DFS Army looking at who the chalk plays are in DFS Golf and who you can pivot to. We’ll look at if you nee
d to eat the chalk especially in cash games, and take a deep dive into some pivots using our Research Station and the Domination Station.
What a great tournament we had last week. Bryson Dechambeau ran away with it and hopefully secured a spot on the Ryder Cup team with that performance. Whether you like him or not, the US needs players like Bryson next month in France and its unfortunate that it probably comes at the expense of ultimate nice guy Matt Kuchar but I’d rather win than make everyone feel good.
Justin Rose became the actual Chalk Donkey struggling mightily with his putter and missing the cut badly. Francesco Molinari and Keith Mitchell also burned some lineups. Keegan Bradley would have had a great tournament had this been the Champions Tour but he cost me quite a bit of money with the collapse on Sunday. Brooks Koepka showed that he still can show up at non-majors with a solid top ten finish at lower than expected ownership. Patrick Cantlay also hit value easily with an 8th place finish, and my favorite play of the week ended up being really solid.
The best story of the week was Tyrrell Hatton. He lost a little over 5 strokes putting through three days but then putted the lights on Sunday, gaining more than 2 and shooting -7 to vault him into a tie for 20th place. What spurred the change? Apparently a quick trip to Golf Galaxy solved all his putting woes. He tweeted this out on Sunday after his round.
Well that’s the best $172 I’ve ever spent 😂😂🙈
Was so nice to hole some putts again today, new putter worked it’s magic!
-7 64 to finish the week 💪🏻
Onto Boston! pic.twitter.com/PrTNv74bsw— Tyrrell Hatton (@TyrrellHatton) August 26, 2018
This is also the first time that I ever realized he has two R’s in his name. So my apologies for writing Tyrell the last few months.
Overall it was a net positive week and we keep grinding regardless. I really like TPC Boston and this is a fun tournament that should be an absolute shootout so lets get to the course breakdown.
Course Breakdown:
The Dell Technologies Championship takes place at TPC Boston and has held this event since the event started in 2003. Originally a Arnold Palmer design, it underwent a massive redesign by Gil Hanse and Brad Faxon in 2007. The redesign was not received well by the players but they seem to have come around and a few players have stated its one of their favorite spots on tour.
A par 71, the course plays at 7342 yards which is pretty long. We have three par 5’s (2 short, 1 long), eleven par 4’s (three over 470, and two under 370), and four par 3’s (3 over 200, 1 under). For a par 71, this is a fairly long course, and players will have lots of long irons into some of these including the long par 3’s.
Traditionally this is a birdie fest, with the last 8 winners all shooting -15 or better, with three being -20 or better. One would think that this is a bombers course, and we have seen bombers do well here with a bomb and gouge approach but the par 5’s bring the shorter hitters back into play. 7 holes played under par last year including all of the par 5’s and the two short par 4’s. I like targeting guys who score well on short par 4’s this week and all par 5 scoring.
We have easy to hit fairways and rough that is not very penal. Players can stand on the tee and basically just rip it. They don’t have to really worry about any trouble. Trouble will come in when they try to hit these itty bitty greens with difficult pin locations. Most greens are accessible from the fairway and rough, but a few with bring water and bunker into play if you aren’t positioned well in the fairway.
The greens are bentgrass and they have them running around 12.5 on the stimpmeter which is fairly fast for tour players. While small, you still need to hit it close to the pin to have a look at birdie as a lot of the greens are tiered or feature some pretty decent undulation.
Overall this is a ball strikers course and one that you can be aggressive on. I expect to see some low scores here and if the weather cooperates I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone shoot -20 or better. The ideal player is one who is long off the tee, excellent in approach, and aggressive, but avoids big numbers. While short hitters can still contend here and I think give you a safe floor (think Zach Johnson), my main focus will be players who fit that above description.
What is a Chalk Donkey?
First let’s breakdown what I consider to be ‘chalk’. Let’s look at each each price range and what is considered chalk there. (DK pricing is used for a guide)
Over 10K: >25% Anything over 25% in this range is considered chalk, and could even go down to 20%. Some weeks ownership is pretty evenly spread in this range, and some weeks one player gathers all the ownership and becomes a Chalk Donkey.
9K: >20% Again, any time over 20% of the field is on a player in this price range we would consider them a chalk donkey.
8K to 7.5K: 15%-20% This is a little trickier in this range, but I consider anyone over 15% chalk. DK has been jamming a bunch of guys in around 7.5k lately and we’ve seen guys get up there in ownership.
Below 7.5K: >10% Players are priced here for a reason, and oftentimes one or two become what I call DFS Darlings and garner a ton of ownership While you usually have to eat this chalk in cash, you want to swerve it any chance you can in GPP’s.
One thing to remember as you construct lineups, players are ‘Chalk Donkeys’ for a reason, they are perceived to be good plays. Don’t fade the ‘Chalk Donkeys’ just because they are going to be highly owned. Very rarely does no chalk hit, and often times you find some of these ‘Chalk Donkeys’ in GPP winning lineups. Fading the chalk is strictly a leverage play, in that if that player plays poorly you are in much better shape not playing them.
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Key Stats this Week:
In this section, I’ll cover what I feel are some of the key stats this week. We get lots of questions in slack about what to look for in the RS and here are some of the things that I’ll be focusing on this week for the Dell Technologies Championship.
Before we get into the stats this week, I wanted to provide you guys with a link to some info about Strokes Gained Data. Strokes Gained is a confusing topic and DFS Army member (And Milly Maker winner) @redkacheek has put out a great article explaining how they work better than I ever could over at his site Fantasy Golf Bag. I normally don’t link other sites but this is just too good not to share. Give it a look here! How Do Strokes Gained Stats Work?
One thing I like to look at first before we get into the key stats is the Results by Stokes Gained tab on the RS as well as the Averages by Finish tab to see what we want to target this week.
From these two tabs we can conclude a couple of things. It’s important to note that Season Long Average in the Averages by finish tab is what those players were doing coming in.
- You have to putt well here to contend, but you don’t necessarily have to putt well coming into the event. So we don’t really need to target putting this week even though it looks like it correlates. In tournament its important but thats usually the case every week.
- SG: Approach is king…again. As with almost every week we want guys gaining strokes in approach. With smaller greens there is an even bigger premium placed on it this week.
- Driving Distance is important. We have seen winners here be on the shorter side, but for the most part we want guys averaging over 300 yards off the tee.
- Losing strokes off the tee = Missed Cut. With the wide fairways you have to gain strokes off the tee. We want to target players who have been gaining strokes off the tee pretty consistently.
Value Tab:
The second thing I look at every week when I open up the RS is the Value tab and at a major it is no different. Who is popping as a value this week. This is pretty easy to find as the better the value, the darker the green box. The value tab looks at Vegas odds and our projections, versus the salary FanDuel or DraftKings have assigned to that player.
Tommy Fleetwood finally getting priced according to his recent finishes as he hasn’t had a top ten since the Canadian Open. The books still like him at a reasonable 33-1 odds to win. I think Tommy makes a really interesting play on DK only and one that we will dig into later in the article.
We have some other players here who are pretty standard value plays. Ryan Moore is priced incredibly cheap on both sites. While he did miss the cut last week, he did have a 6th place finish at the Wyndham.
Tony Finau is one of my favorite plays again this week as this course should really suit him and I think we could find him Sunday making a birdie on 18 to seal the deal for a win and hopefully guaranteeing his spot on the Ryder Cup team.
SG: Approach – L10
As you can see from the charts above, and as is the case almost every week, SG: Approach will be huge this week. I’m going to look at players last ten rounds as that goes back a little more than two tournaments and gives us a decent sample size. The course this week should play pretty similar to last weeks so it’s good to have those rounds in there.
Brooks Koepka has absolutely been crushing it in approach lately. Obviously we have rounds from the PGA where he won in here, but he was great last week as well. I don’t know how much I love the price here, but I’ll be playing Brooks regardless.
Hideki Matsuyama is another interesting play as he has started to really find his game after struggling with a wrist injury all spring and into the summer. His approach game has been fire and if he putts even just average this week he should be in contention. I really like him at that price.
Billy Horschel is someone that the stats all point to being a smash play this week. He’s crushing it in approach and off the tee, his putter has been OK, and he’s just been in contention every week. Plus we have the narrative that he plays well this time of year. The unfortunate part is that hes being projected at anywhere from 20-25% owned across the industry. If thats the case then I think I can just use him in cash and fade him in GPP. If he MC’s or performs poorly I’m not hurt by his 50% ownership in cash, but I can make a huge leverage play in GPP.
SG: Off the Tee – L10
Strokes Gained Off the Tee is another key stat that I want to look at this week. With the wide fairways it should be pretty easy to gain strokes here but we have seen that in the past the players that are gaining strokes off the tee coming in really do well here.
Weird…Brooks Koepka shows up here too. He’s a smash play even at that price I think. I love him this week and the high price will lower his ownership.
Gary Woodland is a player thats trending in the right direction and while last week was probably his floor performance, he has a ton of upside.
Luke List and James Hahn are both getting it done off the tee, but neither have a very good approach game and I’ll be avoiding both.
Patrick Cantlay just always seems to get the job done and they’ve finally priced him up a bit.
Simulation Results:
This week, we have added a new tab to our RS and its a simulation tool. Taco used round by round strokes gained to the field data to simulate 2 rounds, a cut, and a final 2 rounds thousands of times. It uses the same methodology as the NBA sim. It’s a good way to see which guys are more of a safe option to make the cut and which guys have more GPP top 5/winning upside compared to guys around them. It looks at each golfers average strokes gained to the field and standard deviation between rounds to determine a possible range of outcomes and it randomizes based on that.
This is the top ten based on our thousands of simulations. Obviously its golf, and there will be a ton of randomness involved because crazy things can happen, but I love the simulation and how it shows us some value, especially among players that should be low owned.
Brooks Koepka is second highest in win odds behind Dustin Johnson which I love. The player that really pops for me here though is Jon Rahm. He should be much lower owned than everyone around him but has higher win odds than guys like Jason Day and Jordan Spieth.
Make sure you download or a make of copy the RS so that you can sort the simulator as its a great tool to help you determine your player pool.
Other key stats to consider this week, that I’ll get into in my breakdown of the chalk donkeys:
Projected Course Score, Fantasy Points/Hole, Double Bogey or Worse %, Birdies Gained and Short Par 4 scoring. I’ll specifically look at any changes in the Strokes gained categories in the last 5 as opposed to the season for players.
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Who are this week’s DFS Chalk Donkeys?
In this section, each price range’s Chalk Donkey will be identified, and a few pivots will be offered. I use DraftKings pricing since that is where I usually play, but their pricing is usually similar to FanDuel and when a player pops as a value on one site but not another I’ll make sure to mention it.
Above 10K:
A stacked field here this week and we have 6 golfers priced in this range all with fairly equal ownership. I would assume that everyone but one in this range garners at least 10% ownership with a few pushing 20%.
With all six garnering similar ownership, I’ll point out who I really like in this range. You obviously can’t go wrong taking a stand with anyone here but I’ll point out my two favorites.
Brooks Koepka: DK $11000/FD $12300
Brooks is one of my favorite plays this week, just like last week, and he still seems to be lagging behind guys like Justin Thomas and Jason Day in ownership.
He’s played here three times with middling results, but no one in the world outside of maybe Thomas is playing as well as him.
Brooks is just crushing it in every statistic that matters this week. His Driving Distance, Greens in Regulation, FP gained, Approach, Off the tee is all world class and one of the top in the field. He also a traditionally better putter on bent grass than poa or bermuda which we see this week and should be a benefit too him.
I just don’t see any way I’m getting off Brooks at this point. He should be the highest owned player in the slate and he won’t. I’m currently looking for ways to parlay him to win to get his odds up.
Jordan Spieth: DK $10000/FD $11600
I can’t believe I’m typing this, but I actually like Spieth this week. And I kind of like him a lot. I’m going to probably regret this come Sunday when he’s missing 3 footers for birdie, but he really is trending in the right direction and we get him on a course that he’s had some success on the past. It’s also a course that he won’t really have to worry about what he does with the driver.
Lets look at some of Spieth’s stats to show the positive trend we are seeing with him.
Last tournament, he gained strokes approach every day, and at the PGA he only had one day where he didn’t. This isn’t the iron champion that we saw early in the year that was crushing it approach and missing short putts, but this is a huge step in the right direction.
Now this next screen grab from the RS is the really exciting part!
Spieth’s putter appears to be back! He’s gained strokes in all but one of his last 10 rounds and is positive for his last 25 and last 50! Thats huge for a guy who probably would have been better putting side saddle or with a pool cue two months ago.
These two things, along with the course that doesn’t require you to be precise with the driver get me really excited about Jordan this week. The best part is that he should be the lowest owned of any of these guys over 10k and might be lower single digits this week.
I’ll take the leverage here and play a healthy clip of Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka both.
Again, the rest of this range is solid and you can make a case for any of them. If you are making 20 lineups or more its not a bad strategy to have a bit of all of them. Justin Thomas is probably my favorite followed by Rory McIlroy.
Fading Dustin Johnson is always a dangerous proposition and one that I’m still debating as I need to get a little clearer picture of ownership. Right now he looks to be around 10ish percent. I’m not particularly impressed with his form and the price makes it difficult but being 2x 10 percent is not hard to do and is a huge leverage play on the field.
9K:
We get an extremely small 9k range this week with only five players, all of whom are playing pretty good golf right now. Patrick Cantlay has finally been priced up to his ability/talent level. And as is becoming sort of trend we see Tiger Woods as the highest priced golfer in this range.
Tiger Woods: DK $9700/FD $11500
Everyone and their mother is going to play Tiger Woods this week. Seriously, my mom is babysitting my son this week and she said he’s winning. I think he pushes over 25% ownership this week. And he’s in a fantastic spot to perform well. Everything is pointing to Tiger contending this week. He’s in a similar spot as Jordan Spieth in that if he doesn’t have to really worry what he’s doing off the tee its a huge benefit because the rest of his game is so good.
His Strokes Gained: Approach has been out of this world the last month. He’s been SO good with his irons its vintage Tiger. The putter has been a little wonky at times and thats really the only thing holding him back right now. Fortunately for him, he gets to get back to bent grass which is one of his better surfaces and the green speeds should be fairly fast, which takes away an advantage that some of these better putters have on slow greens.
Is there a benefit to being underweight on Tiger? At that ownership, if he somehow misses the cut and you are underweight you have a huge advantage on the field. And while Tiger appears to be ‘back’ were not that far removed from him missing cuts/wd’n/all around struggling.
Do I see that happening here? I don’t think so, but the game theory of fading him is something that can help you be profitable this week. If he wins and you don’t have him you aren’t cashing, but even if he finishes like 30th, a fade would be a plus EV move.
I’ll most likely end up with 5-10% and be way underweight on him just in case he somehow goes off the hope is that I can have a runner with the rest of my lineup.
The rest of the ownership in this range will get sucked by two of the hotter players in the world in Adam Scott and Patrick Cantlay. I always play Cantlay. He’s just so consistent. Adam Scott is a full fade for me though. He is gaining a ton of strokes putting, and has been for a pretty consistent period of time now. Yet, he was seen practice this week at TPC Boston with a short putter again.
Adam Scott practicing with a standard-length putter at TPC Boston. He’s been carrying it the last 4 tournaments and has used it twice, so I wouldn’t count on him using it. pic.twitter.com/gSq9McAhUB
— Rex Hoggard (@RexHoggardGC) August 29, 2018
No clue why he wants to tinker but he’s been carrying it in his bag as well. I have zero interest in a guy that can’t putt to begin with but is tinkering with going between long and short as well. No Scott for me this week.
Now to my favorite play this in range, the man who burned everyone last week Jon Rahm. He was BAD last week. Like really bad. Lost 5.6 strokes putting and 3.3 strokes approach. It was a bad week. But check out his long term form and his season statistics.
That bad week was just that. And he’s due some positive regression here. Jon Rahm is not a good putter, but he’s not as bad as he was last week. And this week we go to bent gras which is one of his best surfaces (still losing strokes which isn’t saying much, but its better).
Rahm’s projected course score is 4th best in the field which means that he should be a pretty good course fit here. Anytime we have a course that Rahm can just pick up the driver rip it and go find it is a course that I want to fire him up in my lineups.
Rahm should be 10-15% owned and maybe even lower if people are still burned from last week. I love being 2-3x ownership on him this week. He’s the definition of a great gpp play.
Justin Rose is in the same boat, burned everyone last week and now we get him at a discount. The putter is a big concern for me as its starting to become a trend with him and the rest of his game has been a bit erratic. No way do I think he misses the cut again here but I’ll be underweight on him.
8K:
This is a great range as usual this week and I love most of the players here but we have two clear chalk options and one pivot at low ownership that I love.
Billy Horschel: DK $8100/FD $8700
Billy Horschel is making a case to be the chalk donkey of the week here. His excellent play in the last month has him looking at over 20% ownership and he may even push 25%.
Horschel has been absolutely crushing it tee to green lately. And actually gets back on Bentgrass which is a better surface for him.
I honestly have no real concerns about Billy Horschel other than the fact that he’s going to massively owned. The other concern is that he’s Billy Horschel and really has never had a sustained stretch of good play like this since he won the FedEx Cup.
Chalk Billy Horschel? Even with good form? Even in cash I think I’ll pass.
Tommy Fleetwood: DK $8500/FD $11400
Whoa price disparity! Fleetwood is a huge value on DK this week as they have finally priced him down a bit. To be honest this is where he should be priced most weeks. He’s solid and usually finds a way to finish top 20 (69% of the time, 4th in the field), but very rarely does he win.
Fleetwood is a cash game staple for me this week. And I’ll have some in GPP but I’ll likely be underweight just based on the massive ownership expected on him.
If I have one concern about Tommy its that he’s not a great medium par scorer. That being said, its not like he’s Paul Casey bad.
I think he’s a fine play this week and I’ll get most of my exposure in cash. In GPP I’ll be underweight though.
Hideki Matsuyama is trending in the right direction and I really like him in GPP this week. He’ll be owned, but most likely no where near as owned as Fleetwood and Billy Ho.
Check out Deki’s approach number over the last few tournaments. UNREAL. Better than Billy Horschel actually who is getting all the buzz. Hideki could break through this week and I like him in every format.
Another player here I really like at ridiculous ownership is Marc Leishman. Leishman is 5x the player that Billy Horschel is over the course of his career and Horschel might be 5x the ownership this week. This is where I like to pivot off the chalk to the player with the long term pedigree.
Leishman was third here last year and has been pretty consistent lately. No real runs up the leaderboard since the WGC Bridgestone but still solid form.
If we compare the two, I actually like Leishman more. His issue lately has been finding the rough off the tee and not being attack pins. That shouldn’t be a problem here. According to our simulator he also has a better chance to make the cut and win. Leishman also gains more fantasy points by quite a bit.
I think Leishman makes a great pivot off Horschel in GPP and will be a core play of mine.
Other’s I like in this range (in order): Tony Finau, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed.
I’m probably not playing Bryson DeChambeau coming off a win, but he’s an option as well.
7K:
One chalk donkey and a ton of good plays here this week!
Paul Casey: DK $7900/FD $10500
Another pricing disparity this week we have Chalk Casey and you are basically paying for his course history.
Chalk Paul Casey wasn’t enough to get you off him? Ok fine. My big concern with Casey as usual is his horrendous par 4 scouring.
The long par 3 scoring looks good, but the rest is just meh, and the medium par 4 scoring is really bad. Worst in the field again. And the long par 4 isn’t much better. When you don’t score well on half the holes here hows that going to pan out?
I got nervous last week when he vaulted up to the top of the leaderboard in Round 1, but he had a steady drop all the way down the leaderboard and ended up finishing 60th.
He has good course history and if you want to play him, I can see trying to hold on to that narrative, but he hasn’t been the traditional Paul Casey we are used to lately and I don’t think he warrants the ownership he is getting so I’ll fade him.
Casey looks to the be the only chalk so the rest of this section will be players I’m interested in playing here.
Gary Woodland: DK $7700/FD $9200
This is a no brainer for me. Good course history, excellent recent form. Course that benefits bombers and guys with good approach games? Yep. Sign me up. Plus Casey right there should decrease his ownership. Love him in GPP and Cash.
Tyrell Hatton: DK $7700/FD $9000
Can the Golf Galaxy Putter purchase keep the momentum rolling this week? I think so. Hatton plays well in tough events as he has one of the best strong field percentages down here. He should be single digit owned and he’s on the outside looking in for next week which should be added motivation.
His approach game has been fire and so has off the tee, so if that new putter can keep it rolling, I like Hatton for a top 10 this week.
Branden Grace: DK $7000/FD $9200
Braden Grace is a world class player, what the heck is he doing down here?! His recent form is not great and he should be virtually unowned. He’s the 37th ranked player in the world and is priced in the 50’s. Last week was an anomaly with his approach game as that has been really good all year. I like him as a flyer down here. Kyle Stanley right above him is someone I think of in the same light. Unlike Stanley though, Grace needs a great week to move on.
Others I like in this range: Louis Oosthuizen, Keegan Bradley, Daniel Berger, Charley Hoffman
Fades: Ryan Palmer, Ben An, Cameron Smith
Below 7K:
We have a real chalk donkey down here for once!
Joel Dahmen: DK $6400/FD $7100
Look, I love Dahmen. He made me a ton of money this year, especially in the spring when no one was playing him. But this is the FedEx Cup playoffs with 100 of the best players in the world, and Joel Dahmen is going to be 10-15% owned?? What?!?
Dahmen is a good player. He’s got a great iron game and he has contended in a couple events this year, but he plays in weak fields. He actually plays in the worst average field strength of any player here.
This is a FULL FADE for me. Maybe he’ll make the cut and prove me wrong, but chalk Dahmen down here is not something I want to be a part of.
Similar to last week, I don’t really want to come down here too much, but there are some real viable options.
This doesn’t feel like a course that CT Pan should excel at, but he’s a solid all around player, and could be an option in gpp.
Jason Kokrak is probably my favorite play down here. He hits it a mile and his approach game has been solid. If he putts at all he should contend. Has a top ten here two years ago.
Si Woo Kim is an interesting play as it seems that TPC Sawgrass is a bit of a comparable course. He has a 40th and a 15th here in the last two times. Coming in with absolutely zero form though.
Chris Kirk seems like a pretty safe play down here and if you absolutely need to come down here I think he can be cash viable.
I just don’t really think I want to play anyone down here and will be avoiding this range for the most part.
Weather:
Weather looks great for the tournament. A possibility of rain on Thursday afternoon/evening could soften up the course for the morning tee times. If it pans out like this it might be smart to make a few AM/PM Only lineups.
Overall, it should be a great week of weather for the tournament and cooler than it has been out there.
Final Thoughts:
As ownership trends start to finalize this week, I’ll post some updates in slack and make sure to join in and ask any questions. This is going to be a great week and I can’t wait to see some of those green screens and winning lineups!
Join us in Slack Chat this week and lets win some money! I’ll be there off and on all week, but will be in helping build lineups from 9:00 to 10:00 PM CST on Thursday night getting you guys ready to take down some huge GPP’s!
Also, give me a follow on twitter @dfsupnorth as I’ll be posting updates there as well as useful retweets leading up to this weeks event!
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